Film Review — Bullet Train
★★☆☆☆
World-class killers converge on a high-speed train, caught up in a deadly feud between high-ranking members of the Japanese mafia.
Did you know director David Leitch was Brad Pitt’s stunt double in Fight Club? Adapted from Kôtarô Isaka’s black comedy novel “Maria Beetle”, Bullet Train’s six degrees of separation and behind-the-scenes trivia is far more interesting than anything we actually get on screen.
Blending visuals lifted wholesale from John Wick, Atomic Blonde, and Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, with endless dialogue that’s less Tarantino and more discount-grade late-career Guy Richie, Bullet Train is as relentless as it is thuddingly obnoxious.
Leitch and screenwriter Zak Olkewicz strain to show you just how kooky these crazy killers all are with their stickers and rapid-fire Thomas the Tank Engine jokes that didn’t work the first time they were cracked, let alone the fiftieth. And that’s really not an exaggeration.
Brad Pitt gives it a good old go — although for a reported twenty million dollars, you’d expect nothing less — as a newly zen and CPD-focused assassin, a bit of a mashup of Sam Jackson’s Jules Winnfield and Deadpool. The support is fine, although mostly wasted, particularly Hiroyuki Sanada and Michael Shannon’s gleefully Slavic crime boss.
It’s not completely terrible. Leitch remains a competent action director with the film’s novel fight sequences a highlight. Of note too is Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s surprisingly layered and extremely cockney hitman, a performance that surely strengthens his status as one of the favourites to play the next Bond.
But there’s only so much hyperactive action, tonal-shifting jokes, and hollow CGI one can take. I’m sure many will love it, but for me, this was a train I couldn’t wait to get off.
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